Ronald Federici

Ronald Steven Federici

(CNN)

Ronald Federici makes the claim that he is “regarded as the country’s expert in the neuropsychological evaluation and treatment of children having multi-sensory neurodevelopmental impairments.”

Federici has denied that he is an Attachment Therapist and sometimes avoids the term “Attachment Disorder” (AD) that is widely used by other Attachment Therapists. He instead claims to be a “developmental neuropsychologist,” specializing in the treatment of “institutional autism” (which he also calls “post-traumatic autism,” or “post-institutional autistic syndrome”). His broad range of signs for the alleged disturbances, and the treatment he recommends for them, nevertheless resemble those routinely proferred by Attachment Therapists to diagnose and treat AD. (The AD diagnosis is not recognized by conventional psychology or psychiatry.)

For years — and as recently as 2008 — Federici has claimed to be licensed by the Virginia Medical Board, when in fact he is licensed by the Virginia Board of Psychologists (both as a clinical and a school psychologist). Moreover, he claims to have several “diplomate” or “fellow” credentials which have little or no general acceptance by, or recognition within, the psychology profession (possible “vanity boards”):

Despite the suggestions above, there is no evidence that Ronald Federici possesses a medical degree. Nevertheless, he is listed as an “MD” by adoption placement agencies and others, including Adopt for the Love of a Child, the Child Welfare Training Institute (University of Southern Maine), China Connection newsletter, Dillon International, Families for Russian and Ukrainian Adoption (national advisory board), and Hawaii International Child. There is even a Yahoo review (with a 5-star rating), categorizing him in “general practice medicine” and neurology.

One must have either a PsyD degree or a PhD from an accredited school to be licensed as a clinical psychologist in Virginia, but Federici’s publically available biographies shed no light on where and when his qualifying degree was obtained. He does not appear, as asserted in his Curriculum Vitae, to have a most unusual “dual doctorate” — or indeed any doctorate — from the University of Illinois or the University of Chicago. In times past, he has claimed an EdD and an MBA from Shaftesbury University, a diploma mill in England. There is evidence of a dissertation for work toward a PsyD from the Illinois School of Professional Psychology in the 1980s, but curiously this school is not listed in his CV.

Federici has in the past touted affiliations with Dr Charles H. Zeanah and Sir Michael Rutter, prominent attachment theorists and experimenters, and particularly with their respectable studies of children adopted from Romanian orphanages (before Romania stopped foreign adoptions in 2004). However, neither of these individuals have publicly commented on Federici’s recommended treatments for children, nor accepted that their research data validate his theories or his proposals for identifying disorders.

Neuropsychological and Family Practice Associates (in McLean, Virginia; recently restaffed and relocated from Alexandria, Virginia) is wholly owned by Federici, and he is CEO of Care for Children International. In 2007, he filed for bankruptcy to discharge his personal guarantees of business debts for his practice, but the filing was eventually dismissed. The filing was shortly after he tried, and failed, to be gain legal guardianship over one of his adopted children, who was an adult at the time.

In His Own Words

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